(This piece was first published in January 2016, ahead of Donald Trump's nomination as the Republican presidential candidate. Mr Trump has now been elected to the White House)

The good people of Iowa will soon vote for a Republican nominee. The polls suggest it will be Donald Trump. After several months of racism, sexism and Sarah Palin (“We’re not gonna chill,” she said at her endorsement “we’re gonna drill, baby, drill!”) he’s still way out in front.

Why? Well, I had a moment of epiphany about Trump when watching Fox News one day. He was on Sean Hannity’s show explaining why people should suspend intelligence and vote for him. “I can build roads and secure the border. I can get this country moving again, Sean, because I’ve done it in business and I can do it for America.”

Then Sean cut to an ad break. Cue an old guy in a cowboy hat who said: “Do you suffer from muscle pain? My magic formula spray can heal aches and pains in seconds!” And he sprayed it on his tiny old arms, grinning at us with big white teeth.

That’s what Donald Trump is. He’s a snake oil salesman. They’ve always existed, always will. In American mythology, it’s the guy who rides into town with the promise that he can cure all ills with an ointment that only requires a little faith to work and 12 instalments of $19.99. The sad fact is that snake oil only sells if there’s a market for it. That implies that a significant number of consumers are suckers.

Ever seen a moviecalled Idiocracy? You should. Written and directed by Beavis and Butthead creator Mike Judge, it's about a librarian (Luke Wilson) who gets frozen in a military experiment and awakes 500 years in the future to discover that America is over-run by morons. It’s a snobby movie, for sure, but it reflects the direction of travel a lot of people are taking. In this dystopia, crops are dying because they’re watered with a sports drink called Brawndo.

The hospital is called St God’s. Starbucks offers over-priced sexual relief. Execution is by monster truck demolition derby. And the president is the country’s smartest man: Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, porn star and wrestling champion. As the country starves, Camacho addresses the House of Representin’ and says: “I know s___’s bad right now…”

Trump is Camacho. Trump is a big investor in wrestling and once fake-punched a competitor on WrestleMania. Both Trump and Camacho reflect the worrying confusion of entertainment and politics. Trump is popular because he’s well-known, and he’s well-known because he hosted The Apprentice.

He “wins” debates in the sense that he dominates them, and he dominates them by shouting and ranting and saying what’s on his mind. In an era where ratings are confused with quality, producers think that Trump must be onto something and so they boost him. Never mind that if you actually dig down into his ideas they are a confusing nonsense.

Donald Trump's road to the White House

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Last year, Flavorwire ran a quiz: ‘Who Said It: Presidential Hopeful Donald Trump or ‘Idiocracy’ President Camacho?’ Among the options - “Listen, you motherf______, we’re going to tax you 25 percent!”; “This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop”; “Sorry losers and haters, but my IQ is one of the highest — and you all know it!” - only one turned out to be Camacho (“So you’re smart, huh? I thought your head would be bigger. Looks like a peanut!”).

Mike Judge has said that he was prompted to write Idiocracy after witnessing two women fighting and swearing in front of their kids at Disneyland. “And this was in 2001, so then I started thinking about 2001,” he explained. "What if instead of this pristine high-tech world that [Kubrick] had envisioned, what if it was just like The Jerry Springer Show and giant Walmarts, and what if that had been the movie made in the ’60s? So I thought that’s what I would do. And a lot of it was kinda based on stuff that was already happening. “

Our First Lady was a playboy model. That something straight out of the movie idiocracy.

Though it was a bomb at the time - Fox effectively buried it - Judge is constantly hearing about the many ways in which Idiocracy has come true: the word “douchebaggery” and its ilk being added to the Oxford Dictionary; the fast food industry’s embrace of “big-ass” diabetes-inducing fare such as the Cronut, or the Double Down Hot Dog; sadistic TV shows that make Idiocracy’s Ow! My Balls look classy. Thanks to the rise of Camacho/Trump, there have even been calls for the film to be re-released.

“People will email and post stuff on my Twitter that’s like, "Hey, you predicted it right!"’ Judge once said. “So that’s always nice. But it’s not always nice because you want the world to become a better place.”

Making the world a better place doesn’t appear to be a priority for Trump. He’s famous for saying that many illegal immigrants are rapists. He’d send them all home and then allow the “good” ones to reapply for citizenship. He also says that many Mexicans will vote for him because he has employed so many of them in his casinos. Aside from being contradictory, Trump’s pitch isn’t even classic conservatism: he’s for bailing out banks, his position on abortion is vague and he won’t do welfare reform.

Dax Shepard and Luce Wilson in 2006's IdiocracyCredit:
Rex

That self-described conservatives don’t understand this is down to many things. Idiocracy lists the problems. American educational attainment is bad and declining. Popular culture is crass and filled with violent triumphalism. The news media approaches every political issue as a binary and often locks out centrist voices. Surveys of the young suggest cultural conservatism is out and hedonism is in. National debt mounts; the something for nothing attitude is prevalent. In Idiocracy, you can win free healthcare on a fruit machine.

"Idiocracy" has now become a documentary film about the United States of America

To be clear, this is not a uniquely American problem. Also, America remains the economic and cultural engine of the world. Plus, the US conservative movement is full of very smart people. Carly Fiorina, a former CEO, is one businesswoman who actually should be put on a presidential ticket. Ben Carson was a neurosurgeon. Rand Paul is an ophthalmologist. Jeb Bush was a solid governor of Florida.

But so long as Trump is elevated by the media, his money and those delirious poll numbers, these good people feel they have to dumb down in order to stay up.

It’s not working – because there can only be one Trump and Trump is very good at playing him. And Trump is running to be president of the Idiocracy. Even if he loses Iowa, even he loses the nomination, he’s won the contest for the heart and soul of the angry Right and has divided his country in two to do it.

The movie not only satirises the strange, pitiful egalitarianism of the know-nothing culture but it also shows the callous Darwinism that emerges from it. To the less enlightened, Trump looks witty, self-made and on their side. All of those things are a lie.

This is a man who produces his goods overseas rather than in America. This is a ruthless landlord who allegedly forced an elderly woman off her land in order to build a limousine parking lot for a casino. So long as no one points out his hypocrisy, he can continue to exploit the credulity of others.